Professional product reviewer

Just take my damn money

I live in a small town of about 1,500 people. I live almost an hour from the nearest major metropolitan area. In my little town, we have a small grocery store, general store, restaurants, gas stations, hardware store and many other businesses. In theory, you might never have to leave town to get all the things you need to live, although the selection might not be as great at the big city and sometimes (though not always) the prices are a bit higher.

What I do have a problem with, is finding people who can provide services, like plumbing and electrical. That’s not to say that there aren’t any people locally who do any number of trades be it plumbing, carpentry or electrical for instance, but actually getting someone to come to my house to do it is another story.

Case in point: I need to have some work done on my basement. Every so often I’m getting a bit of water seeping in. I called all the people I could think of to come look at it. Some said “I’ll call you back” and never did. Some never acknowledged I left a message at all. Some set up appointments to give me a quote, and then never showed up. And, unfortunately I live so far away from the nearest large city, those businesses will not travel out this far, or if they do there is a hefty up charge to do it.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve run into this conundrum. I also need some electrical work done and have yet to find anyone who will come out and take my money. I was beginning to think that people were intentionally avoiding me and I was taking it personally but then a friend of mine revealed she has the same issue. Calls people, and they never respond back. Same issue I was having.

You would think people would happily take our money. But either small town trade businesses have too much work and can’t handle more, are really bad at customer service.

I wish that our town had a local review page for businesses. One or two people giving a negative review on their customer service skills might give them a heads up there’s some dissatisfaction.